


Pegasus Galaxy's Lost and Found Section

by Stella Wind (stellawind)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ancients, Athos - Freeform, Athosians, F/F, Insane Ancients, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellawind/pseuds/Stella%20Wind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Ancients return to Atlantis, Rodney chooses not to return to Earth. He finds there are still so many lost things to discover in the Pegasus Galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pegasus Galaxy's Lost and Found Section

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mend What's Torn Apart](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/23671) by hoktauri. 



> First off, thank you so much to hoktauri, for making such a beautiful piece. It really did inspire me, and I can only hope I did it a of justice with this fic. 
> 
> Also, thank you very much to my beta readers trombonesonmars (who's laptop died, had a canceled flight, and beta read this _on her phone at the airport_ , I <3 you, hun) and urplesquirrel. All insane ideas and remaining errors are my own. 
> 
> This is starts out post-Sateda (s3ep4). This is an alternate version of The Return (s3ep10). Do not expect Replicators. 
> 
> Apologies for posting a day late.

Power was always their weakness and entropy their enemy. Before Rodney had ever heard of the Arcturus Project, he'd worked with energy on magnitudes that had been unfathomable on Earth a decade before. Still, that wasn't enough: what Atlantis needed to run at full power was more energy than existed in the entirety Earth's solar system.

Being given a ZedPM – glowing a promising warm orange – with no pain, blood, or tears needed was something Rodney had never expected. He stared down at the crystal formation in his hands, turning it over as he discarding the beaten leather wrapping, marveling at the sheer energy he held. He held something with more power than a star.

He only looked back up when there was a particularly loud squawk, probably coming from one of the animals he'd left Ronon haggling over.

The woman who had given the ZedPM to him twitched slightly, and reined herself in, staying silent. Her back was straight and her posture contained. She seemed familiar to Rodney, but he couldn't place her or her culture. It was irritating; he was sure his team must have visited them at some point or another for her to give him _this._

" _Where_?" he asked, finally able to force out.

"I found it in a cave," she said evenly, her face too blank to be honest.

Rodney shook his head, boggled.

"Dr McKay?" Teyla called, brushing the tent flap aside, without waiting for his acknowledgment.

The market planet had an odd electro-magnetic field, generated by a sun with heavy solar flare activity. Rodney thought it probably kept the Wraith away, but it also played merry hell with their radios. Theoretically, they were using the buddy system, but with Teyla talking to nearly every other trader, Rodney had split off on his own, and the woman with ZedPM found him.

The woman who had given him the ZedPM froze.

Teyla pulled the tent flap fully closed behind her. She first looked at Rodney, and then to the ZedPM, before her eyes darted back to the woman.

Rodney saw Teyla tense, a myriad of emotions rippling across her face. Shock, pain, joy, confusion, and others evened out, Teyla's stillness masking the rest of her reaction.

"Sora, it has been a long time since I saw you last."

Rodney drew back. A lack of bathing combined with a fair complexion now sunburnt and peeling, and a rough haircut had transformed her. The proud farm girl and the Genii solider was gone.

"Teyla," Sora said. Her stance grew less stooped as she tensed. She raised her head and looked him dead in the eye, her gaze no longer sliding away from him.

"Is that–?" Teyla began.

"It's a gift," Sora said. "All I ask is that you don't tell anyone about it. The Genii, your people, or his."

"Sora-"

"Promise me?"

"Fine," Teyla said, the word sharp and short. "I will not tell Atlantis, but-"

"Thank you," Sora said and cut off any further words Teyla could have said to her by bolting past her, fleeing at a dead run.

Teyla gaped. Rodney thought that she was going to yell after Sora, but determination spread across her face, and she took a deep breath. Teyla sprinted after, angling away from the market, heading for the treeline Rodney looked after her, and then back to the ZedPM in his hands. It was a ZedPM, Teyla couldn't possibly think that he'd follow...

Of course she did.

With some juggling, he secured the ZedPM in his pack, terrified that he would jostle it wrong, and find only shards when he opened his pack next. He hastily wrapped it in the emergency blanket and then

Teyla already was at the edge of the forest when he was done, and Rodney paused, scanning the market. He couldn't see Sheppard or Ronon, which was annoying, considering what a height difference there tended to be between Ronon and anyone else.

His hand went to his ear, but he only got static from the headset. The electro-magnetic field, right.

"Damn it," he swore. He hated being the back up, but he needed to go now, or risk losing her.

He ran, legs burning. He lost sight of Teyla several times, but it was clear Sora was heading towards the gate.

He tried his headset twice more, only getting static.

The giant ferns that masquerade as trees whipped around him, when Teyla dragged him down. His arms windmilled, as he caught his balance enough to tumble on to his stomach, and half on to Teyla, protecting the precious ZedPM and his back, if not his knees.

Teyla motioned with her hands, one hand splaying out wide and the other flashing out three fingers.

Rodney stared, uncomprehending until the field signals Sheppard had beaten into his head made sense. The stargate was surrounded by at least three people. He checked her count, finding two of them at the gate's sides, and another at the DHD.

A fourth person stepped out of the undergrowth.

The world tilted.

"Teyla," he said, not bothering to whisper, craning his neck over the cover for a better look. "Tell me who that is."

She dragged him back down and over, behind cover. Carefully, she peaked past the tree.

"Ford," she breathed, her eyes widening.

"Fuck," Rodney sighed and looked again –pushing away Teyla's half-hearted grab to keep him down– watching the familiar gait and the way Ford kept watch while the gate was dialed.

Rodney made out the symbols as best he could, and committed the order to memory, before he realized the futility of it. Ford wouldn't come back if Rodney asked him. They already had gone down that route, and it had ended in kidnapping and drug overdoses. What he needed to do...

He looked out to the gate long after it had finished dialing.

Rodney and Teyla couldn't shake off their silence for a time, and finally it was Teyla who broke, after pacing restlessly. "We can't go after them now," she said, as much as if she was trying to convince herself as much as Rodney.

"Yeah," Rodney agreed, "Ford knows gate protocol. They've would have started dialing another world the instant the wormhole closed."

"Sora knows to do that as well," Teyla said. She sighed, sounded shaken. "We should return to Atlantis. I am sure there is much for you to do with her _gift_."

They did not say anything else to each other as they walked back to the village.

***

Teyla lied.

While Rodney argued power outputs with Zalenka, she told Weir how they found the ZedPM. Her version of the truth had little in common with reality. She invented a trader who had pile of junk half hiding the ZedPM, and Rodney having her barter for it. Due to the constant flux of people on the market world, it was almost impossible to prove they hadn't traded a few power-bars for it.

"I didn't know you could lie like that," he said to her, days later when he was finished studying the half dozen new systems having two ZedPMs had activated.

"I have my reasons," she told him, lowering her voice, though the din of the mess hall covered their conversation easily. "Do you think Ford or Sora would deal well with Atlantis looking for them? After Sora specifically said not to tell them? Do you really think that they would come back with us of their own accord? They..." Her voice broke, loosing its low urgent tone, and she blinked, turning away.

"It's okay," Rodney said, and shoved a forkful of food into his mouth, using the moment it bought him to think of what to say. "We have a ZedPM, it's something. Clearly, they didn't want us to know, which probably means something too, so there's room for a dialog possible, if –"

"We were in love," Teyla said.

Rodney stared in numb horror at her. She was breaking apart in front of his eyes, and somehow that was even worse than what she was saying. There was no _possible_ way Aiden could have been in love with her. They'd hardly had time to breathe that first year, let alone time for their something more complicated than friends with benefits. He would have known if Aiden had cheated–

"We were thirteen and young, and it was a long summer, and we were in love–"

"You and _Sora?_ " he yelped.

"Yes," Teyla said, her eyes narrowing, and she ignored her half eaten dessert to cross her arms. She studied him cooly, clearly waiting for him to make an issue of it.

"That's fine."

For a moment, he tried to say what Ford had been to him, but the words didn't come. It was probably better that way.

"Yes." Teyla drew a shaky breath, and then took her fork back up to carefully carve out a bite of the cake. "I spent a summer with the Genii. Sora and I became close. I was helping settle _atter'di_ beasts. Unfortunately, they never live long off of Athos, due to lack of essential minerals. The _atter'di_ all died by the end of the harvest, and I went back to Athos with the others."

"At the D?" Rodney repeated

" _Atter'di_ ," Teyla corrected. "They are a large, furry guard animal. I was supposed to be learning, along with Sora, how to train them.

"What happened?" Rodney asked, wanting to know what she was leading up to.

"The usual," Teyla shrugged, her eyes distant. "Of course, things were different when I finally visited again, two years later. She had become cold and proud. At the time, I simply thought she was trying to act as an adult. Now..."

"You think that's when they started her military training?"

"It is one explanation," Teyla said. "And the one that is easiest for me to accept. She had changed much. Still, I _know_ Sora. She will not make contact again if I force her hand."

"You aren't planning to look," Rodney said.

"I'm not." Teyla finished her cake.

Rodney poked at his meal. He'd made the same decision himself before.

"You can't help someone if they don't want you to."

***

Months later, the gate bridge was ready to test. It was a project that had been too important to stop working on. Too much work had gone into it already, and the gates had already been positioned. While the second ZedPM made it that much harder to be cut off from Earth, a failsafe seemed a good idea. The memories of the privations of the first year were burned into him. The sudden shortage of Earth food due to parasites might have meant an end of the expedition, if it hadn't been for the Athosian trading contacts.

Rodney wasn't even that annoyed when Weir made him go out with the _Daedalus_ for the test run, though he was loathe to leave all the new and shiny things having two ZedPMs made possible.

He'd talked Elizabeth into letting him and the team shirk a number of things, from nearly all of their exploratory missions to the SGC's crazy idea that he could help with their recruitment. Yeah, sure the J. Miller guy had some interesting ideas, but Rodney thought the theory could use some work before it was a workable model.

On the _Daedalus,_ after Sheppard had finished flying the jumper through the test run, Rodney picked up on the odd reading.

Shortly after, he had forty-eight hours to pack. The Ancients wanted the expedition gone.

He'd tried to talk them, but had found his attempts rebuffed, but he tried again and again, not letting his anger show. He thought it was a pretty good front, though Sheppard accused him of sucking up.

He packed up his room quickly, which mostly consisted of him throwing everything into a few large crates. The lab was another matter. He tried to hack past the block the new Ancients had put up on the database. The expedition had never fully been able to download it, and memory constraints made it impossible, but even twenty precent of the database would broaden their understanding of the universe exponentially. At least it would, if it came from the right part.

Teyla found him there eventually, a laundry bag thrown over her shoulder.

"What?" he called over to her, not able to bear the idea of pleasantries, and not willing to join in the epic sulk Kavanagh was having.

"We need to speak," she said.

Rodney paused his typing, his nerves twanging and his heartbeat picking up as adrenaline flooded his body. She'd pitched her tone to carry, and there was an undercut to it, one he'd heard on missions.

"Yeah, sure," he said, trying for a casual as he waved Zalenka over to review the code he'd written.

"In private," Teyla added a beat after, and she was frowning, looking torn.

Rodney thought about it and nodded.

They strolled out into the corridor, and Teyla led him out to one of the side balconies. She inhaled deeply, holding the breath before exhaling slowly into the salty wind.

"Do you want to stay?" she asked.

Rodney snorted. "Of course. I'm still trying. I think Helia might be warming up to me. I'm sure she'll come around when she sees all that I've done for the city"

"I mean in the Pegasus galaxy, but not in Atlantis."

"Stay with you and the Athosians?"

"Stay with me, Ronon, and my people. Stay here and help me look for Ford and Sora and the other ZPMs. You don't need to go back to Earth."

"I actually do." Rodney kicked at the railing absently. "O'Neill's made it pretty clear he won't let me stay just to 'pester the Ancients.' Something about poisoning diplomatic relations."

"There is one way," Teyla said and brushed back the fly-aways the wind had begun to tug her hair into. "Several people have already chosen it."

"Really? What is it? Did the Ancients-"

"No. It is, as I understand, an older tradition of your military. Sergeant Ramirez and Dr. Gunnarson both are using it."

"Huh."

The loophole was an old one, dating back to the very beginning of SGC offworld operations. O'Neill had been the one to make the call to let Daniel Jackson stay, and since then, it been there. Not too many people had made use of it, preferring to bring back their spouse or occasional child to the relative safety of Earth, but it had been in the guidelines when Rodney had started working with them.

"You want to say we're married?" he finally tried.

"No. I believe that we should say there was an incident month and a half ago, on the market world. While in the market, we encountered _sheera_ sweets, laced with the chemical compound Lorne's team encountered on M9R-142. I originally intended to force a miscarriage, but with the loss of Atlantis and my active military role, I am reconsidering."

"You want to say that we accidentally drugged ourselves, had _sex,_ and that you're _pregnant_?"

"More I wish to claim you as the father of my children." Her smile was brief and wicked. "That precise wording has a different connotation among my people. It is more of a promise than result."

"That's needlessly convoluted," Rodney said.

"As are your people. Our customs differ vastly, and this would hardly be the first time it has caused some confusion. I do not wish to lie completely. Nor do I think you could fake a romantic relationship with myself or any of my people with enough sincerity."

Rodney snorted, but didn't argue.

He closed his eyes, and thought about it. Teyla. Supposedly pregnant with his child. They could make it work. It would be easy enough to pretend this was her informing him of the pregnancy, which was probably her intent. And he could act; he'd won that award as a kid after all.

The real feasibility issue here was if he wanted to stay. A Pegasus galaxy without Atlantis to call home would be harder and dull. If he went with Teyla, he'd likely end up living as a glorified hunter/gatherer, with some trading thrown in for luxuries.

He could go back to Earth, slip back into his old life, easily enough. They wouldn't let him work at the SGC though. There were too many possible foothold situations. In a worse case scenario, both Carter and Lee would die during a crisis, and they needed a backup beyond that. At least he'd probably end up at Area 51 again, rather than Siberia.

"My cat's gone," he said.

Teyla looked at him, expectant.

"I gave her away," he explained. "When we came here. I-"

He thought of Jeannie with a hard lump forming in his stomach. He remembered Jeannie had her own life now, as she'd told him before the wedding. The lump moved to his throat when he tried to speak.

"There's no one waiting for me," he said.

"Oh, Rodney." Teyla reached, grasping his shoulders. Automatically, he met her forehead with his and they stood there for a long moment.

Choosing Teyla and Ronon against Earth wasn't that big of a choice. He'd made the hard one over two years before, when he'd decided to go on a one way trip.

"So, boy or a girl?" he asked, drawing away.

"What ever will come will come." Teyla paced the balcony. "I do mean to ask you to stand a father to my children, the same as Ronon."

"I think that means something different for you," Rodney said, after a moment of thought.

Yes," Teyla smiled. "But if you are to live among us, you should know our customs. I believe it is something similar to your custom of godparents, but without the gangster or religious connotations."

"I really wish your main source of Earth culture wasn't Sheppard and his choice of movies," Rodney said.

"If I have twins, we can name them Luke and Leia," Teyla offered serenely. "In honor of your favorites. Or perhaps Bruce and Wayne?"

Rodney laughed.

***

When they approached O'Neill, telling him why Rodney was going to stay, he accepted it easily, not demanding an ultra-sound. Rodney thought it was rather trusting, but he knew better than to argue. He also thought O'Neill knew _exactly_ what he was agreeing to.

"Carter will be happy with you in another galaxy," O'Neill had said, when they were about to leave, with the approval of offworld/galactic emigrant papers signed and filed.

Rodney felt that O'Neill was happy not to have any competition for Carter, but bit his tongue. His gossip was old, and the man still could "lose" his paperwork.

Sheppard made it harder.

"Really?" he asked flatly, when Rodney had finished the story he and Teyla had concocted. "You and Teyla fucked?"

Rodney shifted uncomfortably. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"No, I think you do. You want to talk about _everything,_ McKay. Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this?"

Rodney looked away. He could tell Sheppard the truth, he knew Teyla would understand. He just wasn't sure that Sheppard would go along with it.

"We thought it would cause unneeded tensions," Teyla said stiffly, her nostrils flared. Clearly, the translation the gate provided had communicated the level of politeness of Sheppard had used. The hard set of her shoulders told Rodney she was now committed.

A cold war commenced on that last day, as the expedition packed. Sheppard avoided him, taking on his official duties with gusto. The returning expedition was ready to go to Earth over an hour ahead of schedule.

Rodney considered himself mostly packed, but he'd been in the state of mostly packed for hours. It was down to data downloads he was trying to pull from the data archives. He'd managed to access a few things so far, but otherwise it was locked down tight.

He left the lab with Zelenka when the last call went over the radio, beginning to promise an e-mailed copy of what ever else he managed to get. He stopped halfway though, a lump growing in his throat.

Zalenka gave him a strained smile, "Yes, and I will e-mail you my Nobel acceptance speech, when I win."

"Yes, and you'd damn well better credit me," Rodney snapped.

Zelenka smiled, and Rodney knew it was the best way they could have said goodbye. Real emotions would have made it messy.

The gate room was full, but emptying, as people and crates streamed through the rippling event horizons, hurtling back to Earth. The Ancients stood off to the side, looking over them from the balcony, and Rodney made a note to tell them about the grounding station before he left. Maybe, if he was lucky, with the expedition gone, they would reconsider him staying. He was obviously the best person to help them fix Atlantis.

"Rodney!"

Rodney gave Zalenka a last wave, and turned to find Carson reaching for him. His brow was furrowed, and he looked grave.

"I wish ya would have told me," he said. "I can understand why not at first, but now everyone knows."

"Uh, what?" Rodney said, taking an inconspicuous step backwards.

"The baby!" Carson exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, that. It was... yeah."

"Still can't believe it?" Carson asked, and squeezed his shoulder in sympathy.

"Yes," Rodney agreed quickly, "I'm in shock."

Carson gave him a strange look, and cocked his head to one side. An odd air came over him, and his eyes darted around the room, finally focusing on the open gate, presumably thinking back towards Earth and all that they had left there. Then, he looked back at Rodney and nodded once, as though he had come to a decision.

"I could stay," Carson said, voice soft but firm. A friendly light had come over him, a sense of new optimism hovering in him, ready to tip forward into determination. "I could talk to O'Neill. With seven of our people staying, I think I could sell it. I always have wanted to go out a little more. Not on missions, but to other worlds. There's a lot more that I could do here, than be part of a trade concessions. And I'm sure the Athosians have excellent midwives, but you do worry. If you'd like, I could stay. Help Teyla in a few months."

"No," Rodney said. He crushed down the part of him that wanted Carson to be there. He wanted a real doctor, but for himself and the team, rather than some fake baby. He wanted his best friend, but Carson was staying because he thought his best friend was having a baby, not because he wanted to stay with Rodney or even stay in Pegasus.

Rodney remembered, nights and nights ago, when he'd been shaky with sleep exhaustion, and working on a nuclear bomb, he'd demanded Ford talk to him and keep him awake. He remembered Ford talking until his voice was sore and cracking. Ford said a lot of things that night, a number of which Rodney wished he'd never told him, but it had kept him alert. One of the things Ford told him was he thought that Beckett should have never come. His ties back to Earth had been too strong.

"It'll be fine," Rodney said. "Say hi to your mom for me."

"I will," Carson said. He gave Rodney a long hug, and then vanished through the event horizon.

Rodney thought about following him for a second, imagining Earth again, but he stopped before the thought could go any further.

Dr. Weir was with Teyla, who looked like she was smiling through her teeth. Rodney guessed they were talking about the hypothetical baby. Teyla disliked listening to any advice on the matter.

Sheppard came up to Rodney, and looked deeply uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," Sheppard said, shifting slightly. looking like he'd run if Rodney twitched.

"Yeah, it's fine." Rodney said.

"Not really," Sheppard said, and looked even more unhappy. "But I hope you have a happy, healthy kid."

Rodney didn't believe him for a second.

Sheppard seemed to get that, and he twitched another insincere smile out, and didn't try to say anything else until it was just the five of them left, with the Ancients watching on.

And a few Athosians, Rodney reminded himself. They were his people now, he should be more aware of them. He'd have to start learning names, he supposed, learning their customs, learning how to live with them.

He suppressed the urge to run back to Earth again.

In a rapid move that made Rodney squawk, Sheppard seized his shoulders. He bent his head down and waited.

Rodney looked at the wild hair, felling confused, until he got it. He bent it head down, meeting Sheppard's forehead. They just breathed, holding the Athosian gesture for greeting, parting, and a thousand things in between.

It was weird and awkward to do it to someone who wasn't Teyla, but he could see what Sheppard had meant for it to stand for all the words that he couldn't say.

"Take care," was all that John was able to verbalize afterwards, but Rodney knew he meant more than that.

"And you as well," Teyla said, taking his shoulders.

John met her forehead readily.

Ronon didn't say anything, but he didn't have to, the emotions for once clear in his eyes.

Elizabeth had been waiting at the gate, giving them privacy until they were done, then she turned and gave John the go ahead.

They left together, but Elizabeth glanced back, the longing and regret painfully manifest.

***

What no one had mentioned to Rodney was that it was winter on Athos.

The splash zone of the stargate had been mostly cleared by the event horizon forming, but the wind was already making a fair try to cover it up. Great drifts of snow shimmered in the sun, dunes of it forming up, and reminding Rodney of cake icing, and then more somberly, of various stories he'd read of people freezing to death. And the cold was making him think about Siberia.

The sleds that had been made out of the curving metal tent poles made a hell of a lot more sense now. Depending on the size, two or more people manned each one, and on Teyla's call, they began pulling them slowly, towards a campsite. Teyla promised it would only be a another few hours, but Rodney was already sure she had tried to sugar coat the truth.

He kept his complaints to a minimum, as Ronon was doing most of the pulling by himself, but from the way Teyla was glaring at him, he guessed he hadn't cut back that much.

The sun had set, and the twilight had deepened to a near shroud around them when Teyla brought them to a stop. They were in a small valley, with hills rising up on either side of them as windbreaks. There was a lake that was choppy and dark, still unfrozen, lapping in the distance.

"C'mon," Ronon grunted, helping Rodney up from the sprawl he'd let himself slip into, after he'd just meant to sit for a moment. "The faster the tents are up, the faster we get warm."

It was a compelling argument, and Rodney threw himself into _not_ dying of exposure. The metal of the tent frames was rather interesting, and he managed to distract himself with it during most of the set up. It was lighter than aluminum, but far sturdier than he thought it would be. He figured out it was some sort of plastic incased in metal, but it was time for the hides to go on before he could look more closely, and he gleefully abandoned exploration in favor of getting into the tent.

Teyla brought out the fun little fire starter she used when someone started talking disparagingly about the Athosian level of technology, and lit a small brazier. Rodney crouched over it, waiting impatiently as she fed it it charcoal. When a merry blaze was going, he gave in, and stripped of his gloves to huddle over it.

"It's good to have you here," Ronon rumbled, taking of his own gloves.

He didn't ask anything else, and Rodney wondered if it was his regular taciturn nature, or if Teyla had said something to him. Rodney hoped it was the latter. He didn't want to explain himself, and the reasoning Teyla had got out of him was more than enough.

Athosians popped in and out of the tent over the first hour, giving Teyla reports, letting her know when each tent was set up, and when one had to be taken down due to the hides that were to be wrapped around being spoiled. Other people came by to simply talk. One man even stopped by with food, joking about Teyla's cooking.

"I wouldn't ever risk her tuttleroot soup," he added, laughing.

"Kanaan!" Teyla scolded, but she was smiling too.

Rodney rolled his eyes. He'd figured out not to take anything Teyla had cooked in the first month they'd been on a team together. There was a reason Ford had done most of the cooking, with Sheppard and Ronon splitting the cooking duties later.

Finally, the trickle of people slowed, and Rodney found the three sleeping bags he'd taken from the stores – at the time, it had seemed overkill, but now he nested all three sleeping bags and wriggled happily in. The numerous supplies he'd asked for had all been signed off for and even more had been actually delivered to him. Rodney, detecting Sheppard's hand in it, hadn't argued.

Teyla blew out the oil lamp she'd hung, and slipped into her bed. She was silent after. Ronon was already asleep, his snores quiet, but present.

The solitude left Rodney to his thoughts.

For a moment, he imagined the return, and what the SGC must look like, what Earth would look like. He remembered bookstores and cafes, all the restaurants, the wonders the internet, and all the other things he'd left behind.

Once more, terror stuck him, and he wondered desperately if he'd made the right choice. Staying in Pegasus without Atlantis was _stupid._ There was nothing for him to do here, and if he'd gone back to Earth, he would have at least had Sheppard.

But he'd also have idiot people to answer to again, with a boss peering over his shoulder and all the bullshit that came with larger interoffice politics. Another galaxy was about as far from that as he could get.

He dropped off to sleep a few hours before dawn.

***

It turned out that there was a small but steady demand for electronic repair. A number of Athosian carried various objects like the one Teyla had, and several other useful little items. Most, but not all of them, were of old Athosian designs, made before the last great culling that had scattered the old Athosians five generations before.

Rodney fixed all the little oddments brought to him, and made a few more besides, using little tricks he'd picked up. The old Athosian tech operated off solar powered crystals, charging easily with regular exposure to sunlight. Kanaan - who Rodney wasn't sure if he was supposed to be Teyla's friend, cousin, or what - had given him a flashlight thing, he'd disassembled it, and used the solar cell to charge his tablets and laptops. The small naquadah generator given to the Athosians (and then turned over to him for safe keeping, as was probably the intention) was overkill. It was like using Ronon's guns to kill a rabbit; it was possible, but unless one was careful, very easy to fry something.

Still, Rodney worried. The Athosians didn't have anything like his tablets and laptops. All their electronics, while wonderfully diverting for the first month, were simple things with excellent craftsmanship, built to endure, but not to be complex. His tablets and laptops could last him ten years, maybe twenty, if he was careful. That's if he didn't die in the meantime, of course.

He knew the life expectancy among the Athosians. Old Charin was over seventy from what he gathered, and she was one of the oldest Athosians in living memory. He'd be lucky to reach sixty. On the other hand, Carson had said as much weeks before the Tria had come, when he'd been on him about his cholesterol, so perhaps it wasn't such a change.

He lost weight during the winter, the bulk of it in the first few weeks, when he'd been far too aware how easy it would be for all of them to starve. Convinced that he needed to stretched his meals, he'd cut back on his portions. Teyla thoughtfully pointed out that there was a stargate they could forage through, if the stores of food dropped low enough.

"We could just go to one of those worlds," Rodney suggested, huddled in the nest he'd made of all his warm clothes. His laptop lay off to the side, in standby mode. He didn't feel like braving the blizzard outside to charge it. He doubted there was enough sunlight. He cupped the bowl of soup closer, sipping awkwardly at the lip. Taking his gloves off just to eat with a spoon seemed like a waste.

"We could," Teyla agreed peaceably. "However, this is our world. We thought about settling on a new world, when the Ancestors returned. They offered to help us find one, but..." She sighed. and sipped at her own soup. "I remembered the summer I spent with the Genii world, and decided that perhaps a return to our roots were best. Others agreed."

"You mean your people were too shocked by the Ancestors to object," Ronon snorted. He was sharpening his knives, his own double bowls of the stew long gone.

"We have always called them the Ancestors, not the Ancients. We thought they had faults, although perhaps less so than us," Teyla allowed. "It seemed prudent to know the dangers of the world we were settling on."

"The devil you know," Rodney agreed.

One thing that being on a gate team had taught him was usually there was a damn good reason a world wasn't inhabited. It was one of the things that made finding good alpha sites so hard.

***

Spring came suddenly. It felt to Rodney as if one day he was questioning what sort of people overwintered in alien equivalent of Calgary in tents, and the next day the world was filled with the trickling of melting snow and greenery was bursting into the world the week after.

He'd never been particular attuned to the changing of seasons before, only caring when it meant that he needed to grab a coat or pay higher gas bills, but now he noticed. He'd seen the first flowers of the season, the same day the Athosian children had. At least he'd hadn't pulled up half the flowers to litter the camp with petals.

Far more exciting was the day Ronon had come back with the ludicrously oversized deer-like creature, which he'd insisted on roasting. Ronon brought out spices he'd bought on the market world, months ago, and rubbed it on the various cuts of meat. It smelled heavenly after the first hour, and Rodney waited impatiently during the ensuing _five_ hours Ronon insisted was necessary.

"It's like barbeque," Rodney said around his second piece. "Really good barbeque."

"You mean barbeque tastes like a weak version of this," Ronon corrected, with pride Rodney would readily concede was deserved.

He managed to eat another two of the palm sized pieces Ronon had rendered the meat into, before it all disappeared. He was pretty sure he'd seen Jinto sneaking the last pieces, but he let it go.

"It was a good catch," Teyla said, still carefully nibbling on her last piece of meat. "The _veeso_ are fast and cautious. They are hard to catch."

"Harder to carry," Ronon grunted, but clearly basking in the praise to Rodney's eyes.

He brought back another one the next week, to the delight of the Athosians. Sadly, there was no barbeque rub this time, but it turned out to be pretty good as it was. It reminded Rodney of some weird cross between pork and beef, barely gamey at all, which was a change from most other meats he'd been eating.

The next time Ronon went hunting, he had a pack of other hunters at his back, Teyla included. They meant to bring back two _veeso_ for a feast.

They came back empty handed halfway through the day.

"There's someone else here," Ronon called to Rodney and the Athosians.

"Wraith?" he asked, needing to be sure, though he knew Ronon would have said so.

Ronon shook his head. "They had projectile guns. They fired warning shots."

"I don't like this," said one Athosian woman named Balera, putting down the table leg she had been mending.

"Neither do I," Halling said, and he folded away the shirt he'd been mending.

It was clear people wanted to talk.

Rodney ducked back into to the tent that had once been Teyla's and had become theirs, to shove his things off to the side, and to get Ronon's weapons off the table and to drop the privacy curtain that Teyla pretended could hide her mess.

Athosian politics were still something of a mystery to him, with no formal council or elders. There was distinct set of people who would cycle in and out of the meetings Teyla held, but it seemed to be open to everyone, and some people simply choosing not to attend.

This time, Teyla's tent was full, and still more people were crowding around it.

What could very well be an invasion seemed to merit it, Rodney decided.

Teyla brewed stout tea, and waited as reactionary stances flew around her.

Rodney recognized the patience in her eyes from missions, and settled in with his laptop for a long wait. At first, he tried the meteorological modeling program again, but it only said rain for the next week, which Charin's aches had backed up. He closed it, and played with a hacking code he meant to try if the Ancients ever let him back into Atlantis. He was pretty sure he could grab any mention of ZedPMs off the database, if they left him alone long enough.

Ronon settled down as well, and sharpened one of his numerous knives. The scrape of the whetstone and metal grew louder and louder as the room quieted. After a time, the rhythmic stroking was the only noise.

Teyla put down her cup, long since empty.

"We should learn more first," Teyla said.

***

It was odd to be in the field again and Rodney most definitely thought he was, for all he'd been by the lake before to fish. He was weighted with all his old gear, right down to the candy bars he'd amazingly managed to forget about in his tac vest. Mostly though, he kept looking for Sheppard, panic growing in him subconsciously, until he realized that Sheppard wasn't even in Pegasus.

Teyla led them this time, a pair of bantos rods at the ready, though she did have her P-90 as well. She glided smoothly through the undergrowth, leading them through the forest with barely a sound. The other Athosians were similarly quiet, though he and Ronon weren't as graceful. He guessed there really were some perks from staying on Athos.

The path they found in the undergrowth was a worn one.

"Maybe a year old," Ronon rumbled. He crouched down and frowned, brushing at a few plants with his hands.

"I agree," Teyla said, watching the woods.

"They're close to the old city," Balera said.

"I think they're _in_ the old city," Kanaan said.

"The old city?" Rodney asked. "You mean the one Ford and Sheppard talked about going to, before the culling?"

"Yes," Teyla said. Her hand idly went to her throat, and Rodney remembered the necklace that had once hung there.

"Do you think the Wraith will come?" Kanaan asked, his face turned to the sky.

"Why would they?" Ronon asked, glancing suspiciously up at the trees.

"It's a superstition," Teyla said tightly.

Kanaan snorted, but neither he or Balera said anything more as they crept towards the old city, following the trail.

They followed it into the old city, stopping a few times when Ronon saw a trap. A few of them seemed to be meant for animals, but several Ronon pointed were meant to be man killers. Or Wraith killers. The lethality seemed to increase the deeper they went into the old city.

Then, a long animalistic bay went up, and Teyla, Kanaan, and Balera froze.

" _Atter'di_ ,I think," Balera said. "A pack of them."

"Pack?" squeaked Rodney. "What do you mean by _pack_?" It could be an idiosyncratic word to the Athosian language, and it didn't translate well into English.

"They are somewhat similar to your Earth wolves," Teyla said, sighting down the P-90. "But they are larger and are far more territorial. We would train them as guard animals, but we lost the last of them in the culling. These are wild ones."

"Great," Rodney said. "Just great." He fumbled out his gun.

The _atter'di_ didn't attack them immediately, but circled around them. They were bigger than Rodney had thought they would be. Much closer in size to a grizzly bear than a wolf. Still, he could see why Teyla had thought about wolves. From what he could see, they had long legs, pointed muzzles, and pricked ears. The baying was different though, with an undertone that almost sounded like a growling purr.

Then there was a whistle.

Teyla whipped around towards the noise in disbelief, her jaw dropping open.

Ronon and Rodney exchanged a look. Ronon jerked his head towards Kanaan and Balera, who seemed equally shocked, but not furious.

"That's one of our cues for them," Kanaan said.

"Did someone survive?" Balera asked. "I thought we had accounted for the missing."

"Not all of them," Kanaan said.

"No," Teyla said. "This is someone else. Rodney, we found them."

"What?" Ronon asked blankly.

Rodney blinked.

And then he understood.

"We found Ford's men, or at least Sora."

"There's too many _atter'di_ for just one person," Teyla said. "You have to feed them to keep them loyal, and not let them bring down their own prey. For a pack this size, you need at two people hunting full time, if not more."

"Sora," Kanaan said, rolling the name on his tongue. "You met her when you went to Genii. You were helping with the _atter'di_ then."

"Yes," said Teyla. "And Sora was helping too."

The whistle cut in again, three sharp bursts, and the _atter'di_ circled in tighter.

"Do not attack," Teyla said, when Ronon started to aim.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I won't like it," a strong voice said.

Sora Tyrus strode out from behind a building, a silver whistle in one hand and a gun in another. Two other men were following her, and Rodney recognized one of them from when he'd overdosed on the Wraith enzyme to escape.

"Hello, Teyla," Sora said.

"Really?" Rodney asked. "Are we really doing this?"

Kanaan shushed him and Ronon looked at him sympathetically. Rodney thought that was just because Ronon still wanted to shoot something.

"McKay?"

He knew that voice.

"Hey, Ford," he said, and he knew it came out shaky, but he thought it was excusable with the dozen or so mutant wolf-bears ringed around them. It certainly didn't have to mean anything.

Even if he wanted it to.

Ford looked good. Aged, but no more so than the year before, the enzyme had taken no further toll. He still looked almost a decade older than he should, but he wore it well now, like he'd grown into it.

He'd changed a lot since that first day in Atlantis. It might have been for the better, like Rodney's own changes.

Rodney wished he could find some way to say it, but he only boxed away the idea, to examine at some later date. He missed Ford, but he remembered the addiction, and that was a mess he was far too smart to get involved in. Last time, Rodney'd thought Ford knew what he was doing. He'd ended up drugged. And there had been death threats.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Ford asked, looking suspicious.

"We live here," Teyla said.

"What are you doing here?" Ronon asked.

Ford frowned. "It's our base. What do you mean you live here?"

"This is Athos, we are Athosians," Kanaan said.

"What about Atlantis?" Sora asked.

"We are no longer welcome there," Teyla said stiffly.

Ford drew back, looking shocked. "What the hell happened? Where's the major?"

"Colonel Sheppard returned to Earth with the expedition. The Ancestors returned."

"And they didn't need us," Ronon said.

Ford blinked.

"They kicked us out," Rodney clarified. "We found an Ancient ship, traveling just under light speed. Due to relativity, they were alive."

"The ZPM?" Ford asked. "What happened to it?"

"We left it. For them. As a gesture," Rodney bit out. Weir had overridden his objections, citing that it could win them some measure of good will. Rodney had doubted it, pointing out they already had their own ZedPM, but they had left it in the end.

"He gave us the ZPM?" Ronon asked. He looked unamused, and Rodney was sure there was going to be a talk soon about sharing tactical information. It might be deserved. There was no reason not to tell him what had happened after the expedition left.

"Sora gave it to us, but Rodney and I saw her meet back up with Ford at the gate," Teyla said.

"I..." Ford started to say something, and then obviously thought better of it as he met Rodney's eyes. He looked away.

"Your eye," Rodney said, "it's normal."

Ford touched his left cheekbone, below his eye self-consciously. "Yeah. Uh, I went off the enzyme. It comes and goes now."

"That doesn't sound healthy," Rodney said.

Ford shrugged, looking away.

Rodney rewound what he'd just said and added hastily, "It's good you're off it."

Ford's mouth twisted and he glared.

"I agree," Teyla cut in. "I found the effects of the enzyme most unpleasant myself. I'm glad that you are yourself again."

"I was always myself," Ford snapped. "My priorities just shifted."

"And the crazy alien steroids had nothing to do with it?" Rodney mocked. "I took it myself. I was a raving lunatic when I was on them."

"Surely you must have seen the difference when you stopped taking it," Teyla said.

"There is a difference," Sora said, "But it's subtle unless the dose is large. We've adjusted it as needed."

"You've taken it?" Teyla asked.

"A few times, when I needed the boost," Sora said. "It's safer when you have a proper doctor."

"You went to the Genii with it?" Rodney demanded.

"No!" The harsh rejoinder came from Sora and she blazed with indignation. "I joined him. I cut my ties to Genii long ago."

"I wish I'd known," Teyla said.

"There was nothing you could have done," Sora said. "You were with Atlantis and I will _never_ walk through that gate again."

Rodney remembered the storm and the body count they'd never seen, the men lost when the iris closed. He could understand why she never wanted to go back.

"And it may very well be that none of us will see Atlantis again," Teyla said. "The Ancestors were not what we expected."

"They have deserted us," Kanaan said.

"And Atlantis is gone," Ford agreed. He rubbed at his chin absently, and watched Teyla and Rodney.

"Yes, fine," Rodney snapped, not in the mood for any further posturing suddenly. "We'll team up. We might even beat the Wraith in the time it takes for the Ancients to stop twiddling their thumbs."

***

They'd made him a gate team leader. That hadn't lasted long.

John thought he might have had more patience if Rodney had still been around, but he was back in Pegasus, probably finding out just how bad Teyla's cravings got. He amused himself with the idea for while, imagining Rodney being sent through the gate with Ronon to find some weird root or fruit that Teyla wanted.

He daydreamed about his team a lot when he was flying.

The F-302s weren't jumpers, but they were the next best thing Earth had. The brass had offered him several options with more importance and responsibility, but he hadn't wanted them. Gate team leader had seemed like a good compromise, but a short stint at the SGC had cured him of that idea. If it hadn't been for Caldwell, he'd probably have quit and gone to find Elizabeth.

He finished docking the 302 in the bay, already looking forward to ten-hundred tomorrow when he got to fly the watchdog orbit again. For a moment, he debated going back to his office. The paperwork was starting to pile up again, and Caldwell had started to make pointed remarks, but John thought it could wait another day or so.

"Colonel Sheppard," his radio crackled.

"Yeah?" he asked, toggling his headset.

"They need you down at the SGC. Are you free for immediate transport?"

"Yes. What do they-"

The white light enveloped him and then cleared, leaving him in the conference room at the SGC. Landry and Caldwell were already there, clustered around a screen with an incoming transmission. He made out two figures on the screen, and the backdrop of Atlantis behind them.

"Colonel Sheppard," Landry said.

"Oh, is he there yet?" asked O'Neill, his voice tinny.

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent," Woolsey said. "Talks have been proceeding apace, but I'm afraid we have a problem."

"What is it?" Landry asked.

"They're sick," O'Neill said, far too nonchalantly.

"They believe it is the plague that decimated the Ancients before," Woolsey said.

"To hear them tell it, it was the plague that destroyed them," O'Neill said.

"We can have full quarantine procedures up within the hour," Landry said. "When will you be returning?"

"That's not necessary," O'Neill said. "We're going to tough it out here. If we could catch it, we already have it. The Ancients think we're safe though. The plague only effects those of greater mental capacities, their words, not mine. It's a slow acting disease. Years can pass before violent death sets in."

"Sounds pleasant," John said. "You're not going to stay there for years to check that out, right?"

"No. The Ancients have decided that they will destroy the Wraith before they die."

"How?" John demanded.

"They didn't explain that part, because they're Ancients," O'Neill said. "I'd like to see it, so I'm going to stick around."

"I plan to continue talks," Woolsey said. "They may wish to pass on their knowledge to us, now that they're running out of time."

John doubted it.

"We'd appreciate it if the _Daedalus_ was coming," O'Neill said. "I'd like to have a back-up plan. Just in case."

"I would also recommend that you bring medical personnel. We might have found something that they don't know about. From what I gather, the Ancients are not in an immediate danger from the plague, but they've stopped repairing the city."

John did not like the sound of that.

"Understood," Landry said.

"Right. Well, we should get back to our talks…and talks and talks. O'Neill out."

The wormhole shut down a moment later.

Across the table, Caldwell gave him a slight nod, and John mentally started a list of supplies and personnel they would need.

***

Two days after they'd agreed upon a tentative alliance, Ford showed Rodney the other reason they had settled down on Athos.

"It was supposed to be just a bolt hole," he explained. "After I found this, I couldn't leave."

"I'm sure," Rodney said dubiously, eyeing the crumbling walls of the tunnel. He was pretty sure this was the oldest and most unstable part of the city. Stones crunched under Ford's feet, and Rodney could hear him bouncing with excitement.

"Just wait," Ford promised. "I'm not sure how useful they are now though."

Ford took Rodney down a branch of the tunnel, where the supports had gone, and left the passage half-blocked. There was a sharp turn, and Ford slid over to the wall, letting Rodney have a look at the full contents of the alcove.

ZedPMs, glowing rows of ZedPMs, neat and orderly.

He sat down, breathing with deliberate slowness, until his euphoria overtook him and he started gasping in air. Faintly, he felt Ford rubbing his back, and talking in a worried tones. Hyperventilation tended to have that effect on the watchers.

"How many? Are they charged?" he managed to choke out.

"We found thirty-two here. We moved ten of them to another site, and gave one to you. As far as we can tell, they're all full charged."

He made a long muffled moan.

"You just sounded like you-" Ford said, and broke off laughing.

"ZedPMs! _ZedPMs!_ " Rodney yelled. "All the power we could want, and it was _here all along?_ "

"The first planet we went to. I've already realized the irony."

Rodney shook his head, and reached out to hold one, cradling it protectively. He petted it, not caring if Ford was going to tease him for the rest of his life about it.

"Should I leave you alone?"

"You need to get Teyla and Ronon, and whoever it is you do your ops with," Rodney said. "I know what we're doing with three of these."

***

The people of the world with the tower, the decrepit sister-ship of Atlantis, welcomed them. Rodney let Teyla handle the glad-handing, and examined the ship.

"How does it look?" Sora asked, after he'd been silent too long, poking at the control crystals of the ZedPM power outputs.

She had been sent to be his guard by Ford. Rodney wasn't sure how he felt about that. He would have preferred Ronon or Ramirez as a guard, but both of them had been brought along specifically because they had been there before. They were with Teyla and Ford, selling the natives on the benefits of the Alliance.

"Not good," he said, slotting the crystals back into the circuit tray for another test.

"How not good?"

He let the test run.

"Very not good. This is what happens when idiots find ten thousand year old circuity and start removing vital pieces to make jewelry. It's useless."

He stood and gathered his equipment, pocketing several of the crystals he thought were still in usable shape.

The idea to fix the ship up, and make it a second Atlantis had been an overly ambitious one from the start. He'd acknowledge that at the outset, but they'd all been hoping the damage to the city-ship was purely cosmetic. Which it hadn't been. Even if people hadn't been looting the shiniest parts, he didn't think he could have gotten it to work. There was too much structural damage. It looked like it had crashed into the planet, and hard.

Luckily, in Atlantis, the database was located at the base of the main tower, in sealed room. Rodney thought it was good odds it had survived here and had made it plan B.

He gave Sora the pack of electronics to carry, shouldered the bulky bag with the ZedPMs, and led the way to the database, to her displeasure.

"Jackpot!" he crowed, half an hour later, as he loaded up the memory crystals from the ZedPM room up with all the information he could. The archival database had let him in without a hiccup once he'd powered it up with one of the ZedPMs jury rigged into it.

The database was _sorted_ here.

He shook his head, wishing Radek was there. That any scientist was with him. This was what they had prayed for and dreamed of on Atlantis. They had traded for the jumpers and the drones from the tower, and all along, this had been here.

He left the laptop copying data, and found the most recent recording, which was a relative term, since it was over ten thousand year old. He started it, and watched as a hologram formed.

Sora took a step back, and aimed her gun at it.

"Oh for the love of– It's supposed to do that," he told her. "Now be quiet."

The Ancient, dressed in the typical light and neutral clothing, was an older man, with a lined face and greying hair. He looked distracted and worried. The hologram paced, not speaking. Rodney wondered if the Ancient had accidentally made the recording and looked to see if he could somehow jump to later.

"I am Maraius, second pilot," the Ancient said tersely. "This is my final message."

Rodney stopped to watch.

"We carried the plague, despite being cleared for the Exodus. We did not realize it until it was too late. We crashed due plague-madness after explosive decompression in space. I am one of the two survivors. The other has already succumbed to the madness, and is living among the human hunters that were seeded here a generation ago. I estimate I have a few years yet before my death, barring misfortune. This is a new strain of the plague, the details are in medical logs."

"What plague and what do they mean by plague-madness?" Sora hissed.

"The neurological degeneration is far faster than any recorded strain, but death comes swiftly after the symptoms are apparent. I have begun to lock down or destroy critical systems, to minimize damage when the plague-madness comes on me."

The Ancient vanished, the recording ending.

"They were insane," he said to Sora, not really caring if she had no idea what he meant. He just needed to talk as the connections blossomed in his head rewriting what he knew of Ancients. "The plague drove them insane. This explains _so much._ "

He grabbed his tablet, and started a search for information about the plague. They'd only had vague details before, and Rodney hadn't really cared beyond the fact it was what had driven the Ancients to Pegasus. Now, he was curious. He wanted a timeline. He wanted to know how it spread, how long it normally took for madness to set in.

He skimmed Ancient text, looking for the general information about how the plague spread first, just to assuage his own fears. It wasn't something he wanted to catch.

A mention caught his eyes, an account of the plague jumping from one Atlantis to another Atlantis. He stopped, wondering if the plague had come from another dimension. He reread it, and the odd declensions caught his eye. He read it one more time and gave up, and searched to see if there was something resembling a dictionary. There was a dictionary (yet another think he wanted to show Zelenka), and Rodney read the entry for Atlantis with growing disbelief.

Sora was radioing Ford, reporting that she thought he was having a

Atlantis meant three things.

Atlantis meant the lost city of the Ancients.

It was also the type of ship that made up the city of Atlantis.

Finally, it was proper name of the flagship of the city, the Atlantis Rodney knew.

Rodney didn't think he could take many more surprises, but gamely typed in another query.

The database returned the confirmed locations of eight other city-ships.

***

The celebration that night was muted, but hopeful. The Athosians and Ford's people mixed, with food and drink erasing the last of the tensions that had lay between them. The bonfires were built high, meant to burn until dawn.

Rodney spent the evening grinning like a loon, while Ronon made increasing elaborate toasts to the death of the Wraith. It was a Satedan custom, he confided overly loud to Rodney after draining his eighth cup. Rodney rather thought it was a custom meant for a less alcoholic drink than _ruus_ wine, and had not matched Ronon.

"Hey," Ford said, settling down on the log Rodney had claimed near a bonfire.

"Hey."

"You look happy."

"I've got almost everything I want," Rodney admitted. "If we still had Atlantis and Sheppard was here, it would be everything."

He met Aiden's cautious smile with one of his own, and then took a gulp of wine, steeling himself for the hard questions he hadn't asked yet. He thought Teyla might have already cornered Ford on some of them, but he'd wouldn't have noticed with all the ZedPMs.

"How did you escape?" he asked. "Sheppard thought you were alive, but I couldn't figure out how. The blast was big and took out all nearby darts."

Ford looked away, and then stole Rodney's drink, gulping down a large sip. His left eye had gone black, Rodney noticed.

"A Wraith grabbed me right after he left. I was the admission price for it to join another hive. It knocked me out, so I can't say how I got off the ship."

"What happened then?

"The queen of the hive I was taken to saw humans on the enzyme as a threat. She wanted to know more details. It took a while to get away. I went to Hoff to recover."

"Hoff? As in crazy Hoff?"

"Yeah." Ford finished the rest of the wine he'd stolen from Rodney before he continued. "I wanted the vaccine for immunity against Wraith feeding."

"It has a mortality rate of over fifty precent!" Rodney yelped.

"I know, I was there too."

"Why-"

"Did you know that Wraiths can reverse the feeding process?" Ford asked. "They can take life force and then give it back indefinitely. It's a form of torture."

"Oh." Rodney thought about it, thought about Ford trapped there, with a Wraith feeding on him. A cold, sick feeling developed in the pit of his stomach. "I'm glad you were lucky. I still think it was a stupid thing to do though."

"You would," Ford laughed. "You might also want to consider the vaccine was the reason I had to stop taking the enzyme."

"You stopped taking it?" Rodney asked, surprised. Well, that would be one reason Ford seemed a hell of a lot more reasonable, he decided.

"Yeah. The enzyme doesn't interact well with antibodies the vaccine created or something," Ford said. "Ask Metyro for the details, he's the doctor."

"From Hoff," Rodney said, remembering. "He's the one who helped refine the dosage of the enzyme, right?"

"Yeah. He worked on the original vaccine with Perna. He didn't want to stay on Hoff afterwards, and came with me when I left."

"Huh."

Ford examined the cup he'd stolen, possibly looking for more _ruus_ wine or possibly wondering what they had in that made it taste so good.

"What's Sora's story?" Rodney asked.

"The long version you'd have to ask her about," Ford said. "The short version is that she publicly disagreed with Cowen and his coalition's decisions. The secret police arrested her, and she nearly died when she escaped during Landon's coup. We ran into each other shortly after."

Rodney got the feeling that Ford was glossing over a lot of things, but decided he was grateful enough to let it slide. He really didn’t want to know what the Genii secret police was like, as he was already imagining a couple dozen clones of Koyla.

"We could go back to your tent," Ford suggested, intent plain.

"No. And it's not my tent, it's the team's tent."

"Which means no sex?" Ford asked.

"Yes," Rodney agreed. "Also, we should probably talk about what the thing we had at some point was. It was kind of a friends with benefits thing, and also not."

Ford tilted his head. "We probably should."

"Let's say we did and not," Rodney suggested.

"That sounds good to me. I just wanted to let you that I'd be happy to pick off where we left off."

"Why now? Why not before, when you were on the enzyme?" Rodney asked.

"Can you not?" Ford returned. "I don't want to listen to another lecture about the enzyme. It's useful, and it's saved my life a number of times. I'd still take it if I could, but the desire to not be tortured like that again won out. Most of my men have taken the enzyme at one point or another. It's damned useful, and while it skews some things and makes some impulses harder to control, it's doesn't change you."

"Except for make you act crazy and paranoid."

Ford left without a word, and Rodney decided it was probably time to go to bed. He stumbled into the tent, only to find Sora and Teyla topless and necking in the main section of the tent. He mumbled an apology, and looked away, hurrying to his little nook, to drop the privacy curtain he had. At least one of them was getting some, he thought before he drifted to sleep, wishing he wasn't sleeping alone.

***

They found another city-ship on the first world they searched, making guesses based off the information from the tower.

The stargate was by the ocean, on a dark and cold world with long nights and short days. The atmosphere was thin, oxygen only barely within safe limits. It left the sky darker than Rodney thought it should be, and the stars shone down at noon along with the sun.

He could see why no one had investigated the barely visible blur on the ocean's horizon.

Armed with the tiny boat Ford brought – it barely fit their party of eight – they rowed towards the blur, fighting the dark, choppy waves. Ronon, it turned out, had actually done competitive rowing on Sateda. Finding that out was probably the only thing that made it bearable for Rodney. He really hoped to find a working puddle jumper at the very least. This city-ship was the one closest to a gate, and thus theoretically the easiest to get to. If they had to go to one of the supposed sites, it would take a lot more time. The one thing he worried about the most was the possibility of the shield being up, but it seemed he needn't have worried.

They docked at one of the piers, and Rodney had a strange moment of dissonance. It was another twin of Atlantis, but it was slightly off in many subtle ways, from the squat, short towers to the lack of the stained glass windows.

Rodney led them to the control tower, using mostly outdoor paths, despite the wind. It wouldn't be all that warmer inside, but he had a feeling the location of the main corridors were different too. He only hoped the ZedPM room was where he thought it was.

It was, but it was very different from the two he'd seen before. This city-ship had space for six ZedPMs.

"What do we do?" Teyla asked, eyeing the pedestals.

"Add the three we brought, and see what happens," Rodney decided.

"Okay," Ford agreed, and brought out the ZedPM he'd been entrusted with as Ronon and Kanaan did the same.

Rodney took each, doing the honors himself, getting a tremendous kick as each one engaged. The city began to light up, responding sluggishly to Rodney's ATA gene.

Atlantis had been built with aesthetics in mind. This city-ship hadn't and Rodney was okay with that. There weren't any skeletal ten thousand year old dead plants lying around, which he considered a plus.

Getting into the systems was easy enough. Another few ships, and he figured it would routine. He called up the general information about the ship, and read it on his tablet.

"This is a warship," he said finally. "That's why it needs double the ZedPMs. Its shields are supposed to be able to take a beating, and two ZedPMs are devoted to that. Another two are for the weapons system, which seems to include a lot more than just drones. One ZedPM is supposed to power the stardrive, while the last one is meant to run everything else. This is something that can take down a hive ship in a heartbeat."

Ronon whooped, and hauled him into the air, manhandling him into a hug. Rodney waited until he was done before continuing.

"Also, I found the puddle jumpers."

The bay was actually a whole pier, and a lot further away from the central tower, but the transporters had come online, making the whole task easier. Rodney carefully picked out a puddle jumper, and then they were shooting back to the stargate and dialing Athos to pick up three more ZedPMs and head back within an hour.

The addition of the three ZedPMs made the empty city hum to life.

Rodney went to the main tower, and got the cloak up. Just because he thought they could take on a hive ship didn't mean he wanted to try on his first day. Ford followed him, insisting on the buddy system until they'd mapped out the safe areas. All too aware of what a floating death trap Atlantis was, Rodney didn't complaine.

He also let Ford come with him for other reasons.

The was cloak up and he was just about to look at the long range sensors when Ford touched him, spinning him around.

"Hey, can I blow you?" he asked with a lazy grin.

Rodney laughed. "You think that tired old line is going to get you anywhere?"

"Worked the the first time."

It had. Rodney had been panicking. They'd only been in Atlantis for a few hours, and it already looked like they were going to die. And die sooner, if people kept using power like they expected to be billed for it at the end of the month. Rodney had been by a window while he'd ranted, looking at the vast amounts of water that could come crashing down on them very shortly. He still wasn't sure exactly when it had happened or even what had led up to it, but he remembered he had been running out the mouth, predicting dire watery deaths for all. Ford had been laughing, until he asked if he could blow Rodney before they all died.

Things had escalated from there. When they found out they'd be on Sheppard's team, Rodney had offered to pretend it never happened, but Ford had been fine with it. They got to know each other better, and found that they could get along without sex being involved, but they never defined their relationship beyond that.

Maybe they didn't need to.

"Yeah, okay," Rodney said.

He still felt mad at Aiden, and still hated the enzyme, even if Aidne couldn't take it anymore, but he thought they could work through it.

He found Aiden's belt and reeled him with it, to kiss his lips.

***

"Colonel Sheppard?" Zelenka asked. "We have an anomalous energy reading here."

John traded a worried look with Caldwell and Weir. They were almost to Atlantis, with only an hour more of hyperspace travel to go. They'd come out of hyperspace just long enough for Novak to examine their shields. A strange reading was the last thing he wanted to hear about.

"Not another Ancient ship, I hope?" Caldwell asked.

"No," said Kavanagh, not looking up from the waveforms he'd called up. "It matches some characteristics of ZPM energy."

"You think there's a ZPM around here?"

"It's originating from the fifth planet of this solar system," Zelenka said. "I believe it's far too strong to be just one ZPM. Furthermore, for this type of energy to be showing, it's doing something."

"I agree," Kavanagh said. "I think we should investigate it."

"We're on a schedule here. They're expecting us in forty-five minutes." Caldwell said.

"How sure are you?" John asked Zelenka.

Caldwell glared at him.

"Very," Zelenka said. "I'm willing to go down to look for it if I need to."

John looked at Caldwell expectantly, though he itched to order it done himself. The expedition had chased shakier rumors about ZPMs before.

"There's a stargate near the signal," Kavanagh reported. "If you beamed us down along with a MALP, we could go to Athos or the old alpha site after we check it out."

"Very well," Caldwell agreed.

Quickly, a team was assembled with Cadman as the leader. John had debated sending Lorne or even going himself, but decided against it. Three marines went down with them, and after confirming the stargate was there, they went back into hyperspace.

The count down until he saw Atlantis again began in John's head.

***

The sex had turned into something more athletic than they'd intended originally, but Rodney was happy with the world. His back would be an issue later, when the endorphins wore off, but until then, he planned to glory in the wonder that was getting laid a little while longer, until he saw an additional security program blinking, demanding his attention.

He studied the message that came up. Six life forms had just appeared on the planet, and while they were close to the stargate, Rodney didn't think they'd used it. Which probably meant Wraith.

He poked Ford. "Wake up," he said crossly.

Ford grumbled something that could have meant he was trying.

Rodney poked him again.

"Yeah, okay," Ford mumbled and stood, rubbing at his eyes. "What's up?"

"Intruders," Rodney said.

Ford swore, and they headed to the transporter.

They'd get the others and then one of the jumpers. They'd figure out how the Wraith had found them later.

***

Laura Cadman looked at the weird alien sea. "It's across that?" she asked flatly.

"Yes," Zelenka said careful, perhaps sensing her mood.

Laura sighed. "Nope. We're going to back to the gate."

Kavanagh sputtered, and Zelenka adjusted his glasses, clearly seeing the wisdom of it. Laura like him. She knew he wasn't anyone's first choice for a field scientist, too given to caution, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"We could wade," Kavanagh suggested once he'd recovered, but sounded dubious. "I grew up on the coast. Sometimes you can get pretty far out just wading."

"Nope," Laura said. "We'll go find the Athosians, chain up McKay so he doesn't run here when he hears the word ZPM, and ask for two canoes or something."

Mehra and Donovan were both nodding, while Matthews just kept looking at the strange sky, which seemed to be freaking him out. She might just leave him with the Athosians and ask Teyla come back with them. She missed Ladies Poker Night.

There was a low, familiar hum, and her head snapped to the sky, scanning it.

"That's a _jumper_ ," Kavanagh said.

"Is this _more_ Ancients?"

Zelenka's head titled to one side, and he was peered at the cockpit. He shook his head, and grinned. "I don't believe it."

"He beat us here," Kavanagh moaned. "How the hell did McKay beat us here? We'll never hear the end of it."

Laura tried not to laugh.

Zelenka met Rodney at the back of the jumper, clasping his shoulders tightly, hugging him once briefly, as if for formalities sake.

"Do you have it?" Zelenka demanded. "We picked up readings that seemed consistent with ZPM output energy!"

"We have it," Rodney said, a huge grin spreading over his face. "But wait until you see everything else."

***

They had a god damned city, some new Atlantis, a few seconds of jumper flight revealed.

Rodney, Zelenka, and Kavanagh had devolved to communicating mostly in exclamations, as Rodney showed them new data. From what Laura could gather, they'd found the answer to the mystery of life or something.

Teyla had greeted her warmly, with a short touch of their foreheads, and then introduced the strangers in the party. One of them was a fellow Athosian, while the other woman was Sora.

She didn't need an introduction to Ford though.

"I heard what happened," she said.

"Yeah, I figured," Ford said, looking uncomfortable, but only slightly defensive.

She shrugged, hoping he'd understand the issue was behind them, if he left it behind. She noticed the trail of marks on his neck, and looked at Rodney. He seemed more vibrant than usual, though she guessed it could be explained by having Zelenka and Kavanagh to lord his discoveries over. She'd been in his head though, and knew better. She tried not to grin.

"You know each other?" Teyla asked.

"Yeah," Ford agreed. "We went through orientation at the SGC together."

Laura snorted. Orientation was a nice way to put. She'd called it hell. The elaborate set of fake-outs had not been kind to her adrenaline system.

"We also both blow things up," Laura offered.

"What are you doing here?" Ronon asked.

"About twenty days ago we received word from Atlantis that the Ancients were sick. They had-"

"The plague," Rodney finished grimly, his attention suddenly wrested away.

"You know?" she asked.

"We know. We found records about it in the databases. Do you know about the madness?"

"That doesn't sound good," Zelenka said.

"It's not. The plague kills only after the victim is in a highly altered state of mind. The obsession with Ascension came from wanting to escape the plague. The Ancients can survive several decades after they've been infected, depending on the strain, according to what we've found. After the incubation phase, they suffer from mental degradation."

"That explains-" Kavanagh began.

"I know," Rodney said.

"We need to tell the _Daedalus_ ," Laura said. "They should be over Atlantis now!"

***

"Thank you for coming," Helia said. "Your presence is a kind gesture, but unneeded and potentially very dangerous for you."

"We can decide what's dangerous for us," Elizabeth said, her smile open.

John recognized the steel in her eyes, and was glad it wasn't directed at him for once.

"Very well. We have set out a homing beacon for the Wraith, one that should mimic the mental call of a mother-queen to all of the hives, challenging them for dominance. The other hives will all answerer. It is coded into the genetics of their ancestors to swarm when such a challenge is called. We expect that they will begin to arrive shortly."

With out looking, Elizabeth gestured for him to stop, and John slouched back into his chair, and let his lips relax back into an insincere smile.

"The hell-" Caldwell began, before subsiding under Elizabeth's glare.

"This seems unusual to us," Elizabeth said, with studied diplomacy.

O'Neill's lips twisted, but he didn't say anything. Woolsey contained to look deeply troubled. John thought they already knew what was coming.

"As you know, we intend to destroy the Wraith. To do so completely, we must have them all in one place. There may be stragglers found in the coming years, but we hope only a few."

"No offense, but how do you think you can fight them all when the other Ancients couldn't?"

"We don't plan to," Helia said simply.

John waited.

"With the two potentia you left us, in addition to the one we already carried, we will be able to last for a few days under heavy, concentrated fire. By then, the last of the hives will have arrived. At that point, we will self destruct the city. The resulting blast will destroy the hives.

"That's insane," John said flatly. He heard a snort, and he thought it was from O’Neill.

"It great waste of you lives," Elizabeth said. "There's still so much you could teach us."

"No. There isn't. The plague has already begun to take us. We are weakening already. We are acting now, while we have the strength to do so."

"We have doctors with us, please let us at least look a sample of the virus. There could be something we could do."

Helia shook her head. "No, there is nothing can be done."

"We could-"

"Let us die _doing_ something," Helia said, and her voice was shaking. "We do not have the time or even the knowledge of how Ascend. Our death will give peace to this galaxy, and that is worth the price. We are doing this because we should, because the Wraith are our responsibility. It will happen, despite any of your objections."

"They are always very... reasoned in their arguments," Woolsey said. He didn't met anyone's eyes after he spoke, visibly upset.

"We will provide you with a cloaking device you can use to leave this solar system. We advise that you move away at least one light hour. The blast will be large and we do not want you to be caught it the fighting. Thank you for your concern."

***

When they came out of hyperspace, dozens and dozens of warnings screamed across Rodney's senses as he sat in the chair. On pure reflex, he ripped open a hyperspace window with the city, and sent them hurtling back in, only slowing once they were safely in hyperspace again.

"What the hell?" Ford yelled over the radio.

"I don't know," Rodney answered. "I'm moving us back and then I'll check again."

"It looked like a fire fight, and a big one," Cadman warned. "I saw at least twenty ships on the sensors, before we jumped out."

"Kanaan and I both sensed more Wraith then we've ever felt in our lives," Teyla said. He voice was quavering and she was panting like she'd been running hard. "In addition, there is this odd mental tug to go back."

"My money is on the Ancients are doing something," Kavanagh said.

"How did our shields hold?" Rodney asked.

" We experienced a slight drain of ZPMs, but it was under tenth of a precent," Zelenka reported. "Much better than anything Atlantis could have managed."

"Okay, leaving hyperspace now," Rodney announced.

They had gone a great distance, to the point they weren't seeing the battle in real time. If they had a strong enough telescope somewhere and a lot of luck, and no other ships blocking their line of sight, they could watch themselves jump into the battle, when the light traversed the distance they crossed in hyperspace.

"–ty-ship, please respond. This is the Earth ship _Daedalus_. Unidentified Ancient city-ship, please respond."

Rodney tried to respond, but ended up broadcasting it across the ship instead.

"This is the Earth ship –"

"Could someone get that? I can't figure out how to from here. The communications console should be by-" Rodney said.

"This is Ronon Dex, on the city-ship. Sheppard there?"

"Ronon!"

"Oh, thank god. Tell flyboy to get over here," Rodney said. "Let him know the interface is ridiculous, and the chair is giving me a backache."

"McKay wants you to fly," Ronon summarized.

"Also, could you let Caldwell know we're here?" Cadman asked, her own radio too limited.

"We have Cadman and her team." Ronon paused for a second. "Ford too. We've been busy."

"I can see that. How's Teyla and the baby?"

There was an awkward silence.

"What?" Ford said.

"It's long story," Rodney said.

"I knew it!" crowed another voice. "There was no baby, was there?"

"O'Neill, right?" Ronon asked.

"Yup. So, fake baby, right?"

"Just tell him," Rodney sighed.

"Yup," Ronon said.

O'Neill's laughter rang out. "I knew it," he said again.

Sheppard didn't say anything, and Rodney knew it was going to be a sore spot.

"Why are you watching while the Wraith are attacking Atlantis?" Ronon asked.

"One, we vastly outnumbered," Sheppard said. "Two, they wanted it that way. The Ancients have a plan and we are not invited. Oh, and that's why we're under a cloak too."

Rodney had wondered why he couldn't find the _Daedalus_ on the sensors, but he'd thought he'd just missed something with the myriad of ways the interface with the chair did not make sense.

"Just tell him to get over here," he said.

"Yes, I need to discuss something with him as well," Teyla said. The careful reserve in her ton it caught Rodney's attention. She was up something and trying to hide it.

"McKay's getting impatient."

"Tell him to keep his pants on. I'll be there soon."

True to his word, a few moments later, the room flooded with light, and John was beamed in.

He looked tired and harried, but his face lit up when he saw Rodney. Rodney tore himself out of the chair and hugged him, not really caring if he was crushing his ribcage.

"Fly it, please," he begged.

"Who are you, Carson?"

"I'm a man with a splitting headache."

John snorted and settled into the chair. It adjusted to him, shifting subtly, rather than acting like some a dentist's chair. The chair glowed, the interface starting back up. John blinked. "Woah. That is different."

"I told so."

"Rodney, can you check the weapons systems?" Teyla asked. Ford, Sora, and Kanaan were flanking her, presenting a very united front.

"Kavanagh does know what he's doing there, amazingly. I think he's just good at destroying things."

"We need to talk to John about _it_ ," Teyla said.

"About what?" Rodney asked, confused.

"Um, I didn't get a chance to talk to him yet," Ford said, looking abashed.

Teyla sighed heavily. "You made love instead, didn't you?"

Both Rodney and Aiden froze, traded horrified looks, and looked at Sheppard.

"You think I didn't know?" John asked.

"Well, yes," Rodney said.

Teyla rolled her eyes. "You quite obvious about it, on occasion."

"We were?"

"When?"

"When you thought no one was watching. You weren't very careful about looking, however," John said. He glanced at them and offered, "You both tended to be very professional in a crisis and during missions, so I never needed to say anything."

Rodney helped Aiden sit down. He looked disturbed, which Rodney thought was fair. One of the few things they had talked about was the need for discretion, due to DADT.

"Did anyone... else?" Aiden asked.

John looked uncomfortable. "Sumner had files on all the personnel. I looked them, when I had to take command. He made little notes in them. Mine was something along the line of winner of the genetic lottery and insubordinate, best used for non-dangerous rescue missions. Yours..."

"Yes?"

"The one he wrote for you was 'a good kid and too gay for the Milky Way.' Sorry."

"Huh."

"How about you two talk?" Teyla suggested tactfully. "I have an offer for John."

Rodney guided Aiden out.

"I wonder if my grandparents know," Aiden said.

Rodney shrugged. "Maybe."

"I'd like that, it would make it easier if I brought my..."

"Something," Rodney said, not ready to name it yet.

"Something back to meet them. We should figure out what we're calling it soon though, otherwise Sheppard will name it. He's already got people calling the city Elmo."

"Why? How?" Rodney wanted to know.

Aiden shrugged.

"So what was _it_?"

"Teyla's idea. An alliance, but bigger," Aiden said quickly. "We want an independent Atlantis, and we want the people who make up Atlantis too. We don't want to cut ties with Earth, so the plan is give them one of the city-ships and some ZPMs. It should sweeten them considerable. We also want a coalition in charge, rather than just Weir. The first one we're arbitrarily creating, but after that, there's going to be a voting process. We want Sheppard as the head of the military. You'd be in charge of research. You on board?"

"We give them this ship," Rodney commanded. "It's a war ship, so they'll like it and I personally hate it already. Also I'm not living on anything named Elmo."

***

By the time the light of Atlantis and Lantea – along with three fourths of the Wrath fleet – exploding reached them, the foundation for the Atlantis Alliance was set. There were official things to do still, but O'Neill had already given tentative approval and Caldwell had seemed relieved rather than surprised.

"I always knew you were revolutionaries binding your time," he said, when they met on Elmo. "I'm just as pleased that this is amicable."

They got down to work, pounding out a Declaration of of Independence to be taken back, which Rodney insisted on signing first, in his most flourishing signature. If they were going to copy the American model, he was going to at least put his mark on it.

Next, they created a Bill of Rights, with carefully couched language, aware that they might have beings other than humans joining. Elizabeth wrote a passage against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender-identity without prompting, though Rodney thought she snuck a glance at Aiden as she did so.

Kavanagh insisted that something specifically barring torture even under extreme circumstances be put in. No one argued, and Caldwell even provided the phrasing.

Much of the rest of it was provided by Ronon, who recited the Satedan equivalent, the Regulations for Humanity, from memory. He also pointed out places were the phrasing should be changed, to make the meaning more clear, and what parts to leave out.

O'Neill mostly drank tea, and watched. He commented occasional, mostly in a hilariously overdone British accent.

***

A week later, the _Daedalus_ left, about twenty of its crew electing to stay. Others would be returning to stay the next month, when the _Daedalus_ returned to escort Elmo to Earth. It wasn't a hostage situation by any means, but Rodney liked having the insurance.

No one mentioned the gate bridge. The extra time to shore up their support and to settle in was welcome.

After the _Daedalus_ left, Rodney fell into bed with Aiden, and spent a day it, emerging to eat once. They spent most of their time sleeping.

The next day, Rodney was ready. He was the first one in the jumper, waiting for the others to hurry up. His packs of supplies were neatly packed and waiting. He'd memorized the gate address and now all he needed was people to fill the three jumpers they were taking.

The city-ship Rodney had picked out to be the next Atlantis had been the second to last one built, and supposedly had been abandoned by the Ancients during the Exodus due to families wanting to be together. Rodney hoped that meant less crazy experiments with no safety protocols were left lying around. Teyla had said it was a good sign.

They found the city completely buried under pale green sand on a world with no name and a space gate. It took most of a day to reach the control tower even with the jumpers jury rigged to help move sand, but Rodney thought it was worth it the moment he saw the familiar stained glass windows.

They weren't the same, of course, but the pattern was similar enough. The lines of the tower were too, and the colors of the walls resonated with his memories. He shared a grin with Sheppard as they climbed the stair together. They were lighting up for both of them, some residual power source allowing the city to activate.

Aiden found the ZedPM room. He held the light for Rodney, while Rodney removed the single, depleted ZedPM that had burned out greeting them. He replaced it and then let the other two ZedPMs lock into position.

"You ready?" he asked Sheppard over the radio. They'd found the chair room first.

" _She's_ ready," Sheppard said, sounding delighted by the city.

"We're good up here," Ronon said.

"We think the stardrives are in good shape," Zelenka said.

"They shouldn't blow up," Kavanagh agreed.

"That's comforting," Cadman drawled.

"I'm ready to return to Athos," Teyla agreed. "Sora promised me tuttleroot soup if we got home before tomorrow night."

"Let's go," Sheppard murmured and took Atlantis up towards the stars.


End file.
